OOPS: AFL-CIO Super-PAC Shares Name with Old Communist Newspapers

Workers’ Voices, a front group for the AFL-CIO, has been billed as the “largest union super-PAC” even though its own website declares it is not an exclusively union-oriented organization. “Workers’ Voice represents and fights for all working families, union and non-union,” the site proclaims. It is no real secret, however, that the super-PAC is the creation of the AFL-CIO. Filings show that the group is housed in the labor union’s vast Washington, D.C. offices. Last year Eddie Vale, now Workers’ Voice’s communications director, made $81,274 working for the AFL-CIO. Vale is a former Democratic campaign hack.

The super-PAC is poised to become one of, if not the, AFL-CIO’s top political tool for the 2012 election cycle. Focusing heavily on grassroots activities and supporter-driven priorities, they have purchased digital ads in key presidential campaign swing states in addition to focusing on the Wisconsin recall election.

Their name, however, may not be the best-conceived political label for group seeking to sway voter opinion in an election. As it turns out, Workers’ Voices is a fairly routine and common name for propaganda newspapers and broadsides affiliated with the Communist Party. In Detroit, a group calling itself the Communist Voice Organization has for a long time published the Detroit Workers’ Voice. Worker’s Voice was also the name of an Irish newspaper with ties to the Communist Party there. Other Communist Party groups in other nations have also used the name frequently.